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Suncor Energy Wins Ceres-Acca Sustainability Reporting Award

Ceres and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) presented reporting awards to five companies for the second annual Ceres-ACCA North American Sustainability Reporting Awards at a luncheon in Boston today. Suncor Energy, Inc., a Canadian company, took the top award.

Ceres and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) presented reporting awards to five companies for the second annual Ceres-ACCA North American Sustainability Reporting Awards at a luncheon in Boston today. Suncor Energy, Inc., a Canadian company, took the top award.

The purpose of the awards program is to reward best practice in reporting on sustainability, environmental and social issues by United States and Canadian corporations and other organizations and to provide guidance to other entities that are publishing or intend to publish sustainability reports.

In its second year, ACCA and Ceres received 52 reporting award applications from 48 companies, including 32 sustainability reports, 12 environmental reports and 8 social reports. An 8-person judges' panel met in February to select the award winners. The judging criteria focused on completeness, credibility and effectiveness of communication.

Speaking at the awards ceremony at the Hyatt Regency Boston, Rick George, President and Chief Executive Office of Suncor Energy, Inc., the winner of the "Best Sustainability Report" award against 31 other reports from leading sustainability reporters from across North America, offered these remarks "Suncor's Sustainability Report is the first by a Canadian company to be prepared fully in accordance with the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which is setting new international standards for sustainability reporting. This year's report focused on stakeholders - the employees, customers, communities and shareholders - who have stake in our business and our vision of becoming a sustainable energy company. Getting this award affirms our commitment to open, honest and thorough communication on our progress and challenges".

Ceres Executive Director Mindy Lubber said: "In this 15th anniversary year for Ceres, we have much to celebrate in terms of the progress made in corporate transparency and stakeholder engagement. 400 companies are now using the GRI's globally applicable guidelines for reporting environmental, economic and social information, and the best reports clearly discuss key impacts, explain changes in performance, positive and negative, and set a vision and targets for future progress. Ceres, ACCA and the judges were pleased to have received so many strong entries for this year's awards. Many more companies in North America should be reporting in this way"

John Ferguson, Vice President Communications, North America at ACCA, said: "Sustainability reporting acts as a key driver of good corporate social responsibility performance and plays a vital role in improving not just communication, but also credibility and trust between organizations and their stakeholders. Sustainability reporting provides a clear framework to allow stakeholders, including investors, to compare companies on their performance - both good and bad - year on year. It's great to see Canadian companies doing so well on this comparison."

Further acknowledgement of this year's winners and workshops for organizations seeking to improve their sustainability reporting will take place in Toronto on April 29, 2004 at the National Club.

Canadian Business and the Canadian Environment Awards are sponsors of the awards.Green@Work magazine is serving as the US communications partner and Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR) and Sustainable Enterprise Academy (SEA) are endorsers of the awards program in Canada. For more information, call 416-483- 4328 or visitwww.accaglobal.com/sustainability.

About ACCAACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the largest international accountancy body with 320,000 members and students in 160 countries. ACCA has promoted transparency in reporting the impact of business activities on sustainable development for over a decade. ACCA is involved in reporting awards in more than 20 countries across the world. ACCA participates in a number of influential organizations, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). In recognition of our UK social and environmental issues program, ACCA has been awarded a Queen's Award for Sustainable Development.